Just because Danny Boyle found the cheat code on how to adapt Irvine Welsh with Trainspotting (see also David Fincher cracking Chuck Palahniuk with Fight Club), it didn’t mean that other filmmakers suddenly had an easy job of transferring the Scottish author’s work to the big screen. Oh, you could employ surrealism, narration, frantic editing and fourth wall breaking all you want, that doesn’t necessarily mean that, hey presto, you suddenly have a censor baiting masterpiece that offers up a darkly humorous trawl through the gutters of society.
Still, props to anyone who’s brave (or high) enough to attempt it and after the likes of Trainspotting, The Acid House and Ecstasy, we got Jon S. Baird’s Filth, an appropriately sordid little tale that gives James McAvoy free reign to cut loose and be the biggest C-word humanly possible in order to secure himself a promotion as deputy inspector. Oh, didn’t I mention – he’s polis (that’s Scottish for police, btw).
After the murder of a Japanese exchange student sparks outrage, the race is on within the Lothian and Borders Police Department to see who can nab the coveted promotion to Detective Inspector. The potential candidate we follow is the charismatic, yet utterly loathsome Bruce Robertson, who continuously delights in flexing his racist, misogynist, homophobic drug hoovering muscles by gleefully indulging in scheming tactics he obnoxiously refers to as “The Games”. This Means that he delights in spreading rumours, knocking the confidence and, in some cases, shagging the wives of his rivals by using every underhanded method at his disposal to turn his colleagues against one another and get the upper hand.
However, when Bruce isn’t indulging his love of being a complete and utter bastard, he’s also got a whole other batch of misadventures on the go such as bullying mild mannered fellow member of his masonic lodge, Clifford Blades, while making repeated obscene phone calls to his wife, Bunty. However, while we eventually discover that Bruce is bipolar, his smug, drama sewing existence starts to unravel after he fails to save the life of a man who drops dead in the middle of the street due to a heart attack as it triggers memories of a traumatic event from his childhood. Soon, the pressure Bruce has been exerting on his “friends” is coming back double on him as his various schemes soon start to collapse and he begins to have startling visions of people with animal heads – but surely the pressure of being an absolute shite isn’t enough to break such a man, is it? What else could be going on in his life to make him implode in such spectacular fashion and how does it connect to him trying to find the gang who killed that exchange student? Sometimes the stress of ruining lives as you try and work your way up the ladder of life can turn you into an utter pig…
When it comes to the presentation of Filth, Jon S. Baird is working from the willfully messy blueprint of Trainspotting to an excessive degree. The story is led by excessive voice over, a lot of the characters prove to be near grotesque, stylised caricatures of real humans and pace of the thing moves at the frantic, erratic speed of someone on a particularly potent cocaine binge. Fourth walls are smashed and all manner of provocative content flashes before our eyes such a rampant drug consumption, deviant sexual behavior, foul language and the occasional photocopy of a micropenis and at times the movie seems to liken itself to a bucking bronco that’s daring you to cling on for dear life as we’re blitzed with no hold barred satire that doesn’t exactly cast the Scottish constabulary in a flattering light.
It’s deranged, scattershot and unsurprisingly ugly, but when Filth hits its debauched heights, it’s also very, very funny as it savagely dismantles the police as a bunch of petty, fucked up individuals whom we’ve placed our trust in to protect us. Essentially a cesspool of toxic masculinity that feels like the interior of the press offices of the Daily Star during the 80s, the surface level boys club is soon revealed by the odious Bruce Robertson to be nothing more than a house of cards made up of hidden insecurities, low IQs and blokey behavior and even though you wouldn’t want the man to solve a case you’re involved in, he proves to be a enjoyable lead to hate has he drags you through the tatters of his shitty life.
The main draw her is undoubtedly McAvoy who seems not only perfect to portray one of Welsh’s horribly flawed leads, but appears practically itching to play the biggest piece of shite he can and relish it by doing so. In fact, seeing as he’s the guy who has to try and anchor the chaotic world, the film pretty much is Jame McAvoy being up for pretty much anything the story has to throw at him, no matter how wild and fearless it may be. Thankfully (and to the surprise of no one), the actor is more than up to the task as he lies, cheats, harasses and bullies literally everyone in his path.
However, while the scenes of McAvoy making everybody’s life a living hell and then winking at the camera proves to be darkly hilarious, the rest of the sizable cast are spread surprising thin as there simply isn’t any room for anyone’s POV except Bruce. That means that an ensemble that includes the likes of Imogen Poots, Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan and Gary Lewis are all nothing more than foils for Bruce’s machinations and even when they get a moment in the spotlight, they’re usually playing greatly exaggerated characters. Similarly, when Filth has to pull back on its more outrageous behavior in order to try to seriously focus on some of the more sobering themes, it tends to feel like it has a far shakier grasp on the material than all the earlier, un-PC, anarchic bluster would have you believe. I mean, arguably it make thematic sense for a film poking fun at alpha male bullshit to be revealed as not being as confident as it once boasted, but a twist laden last reel suddenly takes a trip into thriller territory that almost evokes the like of Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill in some later scenes. Unfortunately, Baird doesn’t really have the deft touch of a Boyle to make the jump from sledgehammer satire to bizarre, reality bending twists and as a result feels like the film sobered up suddenly and is trying to act respectable while it frantically wipes the coke residue from its nostrils and even a viciously humorous final coda can’t stop the unevenness from spreading through the entire film.
Tons of fun until it actually wants to be about something, Filth may take aim at far too many subjects to fully commit to all of them, but Baird’s determination to make the film as fucked as he can should be applauded – I mean where else are you going to find Charles Xavier making filthy phone calls to Moaning Myrtle in the voice of Frank Sidebottom? But the vast majority of the heavy lifting is predominantly handled by James McAvoy who seems stunningly locked into a don’t-give-a-fuck mindset which makes him impossible to ignore.
Genuine Filth.
🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 